


An Open, Open, Open Road, An Avalanche of Feel It All

by Frances



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27987882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frances/pseuds/Frances
Summary: 'He laughed a little at that but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Yes, just our relative ages and historical power imbalances. Also that up until quite recently I’d presumed you viewed me in a strictly familial manner and would feel burdened or even disgusted by any offer I could make."'Series of shorter romance one-shots, since this is apparently how I'm handling quarantine.
Relationships: Numair Salmalín/Veralidaine Sarrasri
Comments: 13
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Say this is what the pain made of you: an open, open, open road, an avalanche of feel it all."  
> -Andrea Gibson, again, always

The moment he emerged from his bedroll she looked over at him, at first far too many emotions flickering across her face for him to identify any single one. Ultimately, Daine landed on a smile that started bright and then faded. 

“Good morning.” She murmured from the campfire she was stoking. She stood, pausing to stretch her arms backwards as they’d go. His attention lingered on the way it pulled her shirt taut against her, the small stripe of skin it exposed. 

Numair repeated the greeting back to her, wondering briefly at her nervous hesitance before recalling with both delight and mortification how their previous evening had ended. 

“Are you all right?” Numair asked, stupidly.

She looked amused. “I’m perfectly fine.”

He inhaled to speak and found absolutely no words at all.

“I suppose we ought to chat.” She met his eyes but her hands were shaking as she flipped an egg.

“In an ideal world, we would’ve done so beforehand.” 

Her mouth twisted a bit at that. “It’s all right. I understand that you didn’t promise me anything. I didn’t ask you to.” 

“That is not my concern.”

“Really?” Her tone of doubt was unflattering. 

He felt himself blush. “Not in the direction you’re imagining. That is, it’s very unlikely that you want anything I’m unwilling to give.” 

She blinked at him very rapidly, apparently speechless.

He seized the opportunity to continue. “When I was your age, I had some encounters that I now regret deeply.”

“Really? Who with?” Her interest seemed genuine. 

“No one that remembers me fondly. I would be very upset to play that role in your life.”

Her brow crinkled. “The whole thing was my idea.” 

That much was very true. She’d curled up against him at the campfire, ostensibly to read his astronomy textbook with him. He’d made a joke about moons that Daine had charitably laughed at. Mid-chuckle, she’d leaned forward to kiss him casually, as though that was something she’d done daily, or even once before. She had frozen then, smile sliding from her lips. He’d put a hand to his own mouth and then laid it down in his lap, staring down at the appendage. Daine reached for his face and then hesitated, hand bobbing awkwardly between them. 

Daine had taken in a deep breath, like she was about to dive into cold water. “Do you mind if--”

“Yes.” Numair had whispered and then at her flinch corrected himself. “Or no. I mean, I don’t mind.” 

She’d nodded and slid onto his lap, digging her fingertips into the skin of his back. She’d kissed his neck until he’d lifted her chin for a much harsher kiss, a touch she’d welcomed with a quiet moan. 

“Be that as it may.” Numair closed his eyes and with great effort returned to the present. “Sometimes these things feel different under the light of day” 

“No. I don’t regret anything.” Daine’s expression was tender. “I had a lovely time.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that and the tension softened. 

Daine continued. “Honestly, I’m just surprised that you’d even have me.”

It was his turn to blink. “Why would I refuse?”

Her expression wasn’t soft anymore. She shrugged one shoulder stiffly. “There’s plenty of reasons you wouldn’t be interested”

“No, there really aren’t.”

“You still seem embarrassed.”

“More ashamed,” He told her.

The corners of her mouth turned sharply down. Her voice was a bit thick. “Oh. That makes sense.”

Numair sighed. “You are much younger than me. Historically, I’ve often been charged with your supervision and wellbeing. And worse, you lack any adult who might traditionally run interference against the interest of inappropriate parties. Wanting you feels predatory, or at least something similarly despicable.” 

Her look was confused now instead of suspicious. “That’s what’s got you all melancholy? Just that?”

He laughed a little at that but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Yes, just our relative ages and historical power imbalances. Also that up until quite recently I’d presumed you viewed me in a strictly familial manner and would feel burdened or even disgusted by any offer I could make.”

She raised her eyebrows in response. 

He couldn’t help but remember how eagerly she’d pressed herself into him, how she’d siezed a wrist to press a hand into her breast. She’d whimpered beneath him and laughed when he froze, assuring him it was not a complaint. She had been responsive and breathless. It had been something out of the kind of fantasy he indulged much too often. 

Daine eyed the now burnt breakfast for a long moment before she responded. “I came to you. Well, if I’m being honest, I threw myself at you first time I had both the chance and the courage. In any case, by my reckoning we’ve worked as equals for years now.”

“Of course,” He responded. “At least as far as I’m concerned. But any relationship between us, if you’d even consider such a thing, would be scrutinized and dissected in your presence and out of it.”

Her smile was lukewarm. “I have no idea what that might be like.”

“I know.” Numair sighed. “That was not something I could protect you from, at least out of my hearing.”   
She scoffed at him. “Of course not. It’s like trying to stop the sunset.” Daine sucked in a deep breath and then continued. “You said that you’d had women and nights that you regretted.”

“Yes.”

“Would last night be one of them?”

“No,” His denial was immediate and almost stern. “Never.”   
“All right. So ladies will chuckle a bit more when I pass them in the courtyard. I don’t see how that matters.”

“It’s something I’d spare you if I could.”

“And that’s truly your only concern?”

“Well, that and what level of involvement you’re even interested in. What else could I possibly object to?”

Daine sighed and began counting on her fingers. “I haven’t any fortune, legitimacy, family connections, virginity or courtly elegance to offer.” Her smile would have looked genuine to anyone else. “So just all that.”

He spoke very carefully. “I am sorry if I ever gave the impression I would judge you, or anyone’s, value by those means.”   
She shrugged a single shoulder again. “It’s different for friends, I think. Or for more casual arrangements.”

“The hypocrisy alone would be galling.”

“You broke conventions plenty just to be my friend all these years. I know that wasn’t free.”

“You’re the most important person in my life. There is no price I wouldn’t have paid. In any case, my own reputation was in tatters before your adolescence even commenced. My only regret in that matter is the trouble I brought you, by proxy.”

She looked at him for a long moment. Last night, when they were done, she’d curled against his side in a surprisingly adorable pose, her head resting on his chest. He had leaned down to kiss her head and called her ‘darling’ softly enough that she could pretend not to hear him. 

He’d held her then in moments that felt stolen, deeply relieved that she’d only burrowed closer and then gone to sleep. 

He continued. “Matters of right and wrong aside, I genuinely don’t care. About any of those alleged virtues you just named.”

Daine took a deep breath. “If you don’t want anything further with me... I understand that sex isn’t any kind of promise. Really.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“You could.” She met his eyes. Daine was actually smiling now. “But it’s not likely you want anything I’m not ready to give.” 

  
  


;


	2. Letters

When he arrived in Scanra, he was at first quite worried to find four letters from Daine already. He opened the oldest one first:

_Kit has shamed herself in a new and original way and we’ve reached a compromise. Part of it is me not telling you the details and her giving Jon a wide berth for this next week until we leave for the Swoop and then her cleaning up the entire mess, until no one can even tell that it ever happened._

_For my part, I tried to be understanding that she’s just a child and she misses you and that big feelings are so much harder when you’re that young. She doesn’t quite understand that you have to be away for more important things sometimes._

_So we agreed that I will write to you every day. And send you something from her along with it._

_Please don’t feel obligated to respond at anything approaching this rate._

_I know you have work to do and I know you’re busy._

_We both miss you plenty,_

_Daine_

The other three letters included small updates about their friends, and, with each, a sheet of paper with ink that had clearly been applied by a variety of dragon appendages. 

A week went by and she was as good as her word. Sometimes it was a longer anecdote, other times it was just a couple of lines about the day along with a picture from Kit. He only managed to write back every third or fourth day but opening envelopes with her handwriting immediately, and without any serious competition, became the high point of his long, icy days. 

On the beginning of his third week gone she sent: 

_One of the trainees tried to grab my waist while I was bending over to grab something. Cloud bit his thumbnail off and then Sarge had him run until he threw up. Kit wanted to send you the thumbnail today but it occurred to me you might do something with it. So she picked out this pine needle instead._

_-Daine_

  
  


_It’s a good thought but I don’t think his thumbnail will have entirely regrown by the time I rejoin you. It will be a simple matter to detect him, I’m afraid._

_-Numair_

  
  


_He apologized to me today and he meant it. It’s pretty obvious that it’s just because he found out who I am or who my Da is or maybe even who you are. He looked terrified._

_It just made me madder. He’s only sorry because it turns out I’m not helpless, not because he touched me without asking._

_I told Onua about it and he was shovelling stables until quite early this morning._

_I’m not sure inconsideration is something you can cure with hard work but Onua seems prepared to try._

_Love,_

_Daine_

He refused to read into the sign off. 

  
  
  


_Ma and Da visited for Midsummer. Don’t think I don’t know that that’s part of the reason you were so eager to take this job._

_Anyway, Ma gave me some of that ointment. I’d like you to keep some on you; though it’s too heavy for the raven so I had to send it regular way. It seems reasonable to prepare for the day that it’s the difference between life and death, seeing as neither of us can heal a human._

_Da mostly wanted to talk about bows and arrows so that was nice. He brought me one that he’d made for me and it’s a wonder, not that you’d be able to tell. Ma taught me some recipes, which was good. Then she suggested that I marry the next fellow that asks, seeing as my magic is quite bizarre and I’m already past my prime, as far as most men are concerned._

_That wasn’t as nice. It feels wrong to fight with her when I’ll only be able to see her four times a year. But I wish she understood that everyone I’ve helped is plenty to be proud of in this life, even if I never marry._

_I would like to ask you something about something that’s been on my mind for a while but only if you can promise to tell me the truth, rather than something you think I’d be happier hearing. Is that all right?_

_Love,_

_Daine_

_Certainly, Magelet. I’d love to argue that I wouldn’t lie to you for your own good, but that would prove precisely otherwise. We both sometimes delicately craft mountains out of molehills. It’s a good idea on your part to try to waylay that tendency. I’m honored that you trust me enough to raise the concern directly._

_Furthermore, you are grown and have more than any right to any truth you are inclined towards._

_The cultural differences here are, frankly, upsetting. Someone offered me his daughter in exchange for fireproofing spells and then assured me that I wouldn’t need to marry her._

_I sometimes wish for Thayet’s diplomacy in these moments. I did, however, manage to depart his home not in possession of another human but rather a yak. I am not sure which of us is less pleased with this trade._

_I am looking forward to starting back in a couple weeks._

_I know it’s not the same at all, but I could not be prouder of everything you’ve accomplished and who you’ve become. I’m sure Sarra will see that, given enough time._

_Love,_

_Numair_

He figured it was all right, then, to respond in kind. 

_It’s not the same but it’s lovely to hear just the same. I have so many good things in this life._

_All my love,_

_Daine_

Kit sent along a leaf that insects had furrowed canals out of in a rune-like pattern. 

_This has been on my mind for quite a bit. A few months ago, that innkeeper called me your wife. Which has happened fair often, really. You’d always laughed every time before but that time you looked sad and then there was no chatting with you until well after we’d left._

_Why was that?_

_And please tell me the truth. Even if it’s that, as I’ve gotten older, you feel too embarrassed or awkward to keep traveling or working with me, or at least not with just the two of us. I could understand that. I don’t want to distress you._

_Maybe it would have been better to discuss this with you in person but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Hopefully this way is all right too._

_-Daine_

She’d pressed a thin layer of clay into Kit’s scales and then baked it. It fell apart in his fingers when he tried to run them over it. 

It took six days. 

Deciding there was no sense putting bad news off, she ripped the envelope open as soon as it was placed in her hands. 

The first thing she noticed was that the handwriting was without flaws or splotches and she understood that in the intervening days he’d written and re-written it again and again .

_I am very sorry if the contents therein make you uncomfortable or in any way decreases your happiness. After days of unproductive obsessing (shocking, I’m sure) I have decided this: It is better to honor my oath, to tell you the truth than to allow you to continue to think that I wish for any reason to see less of you. Weeks on the road with you have been some of the happiest times in my life and I am too selfish to part with that willingly._

_I think it’s also better that you get as much time as possible to have a reaction uncomplicated by my presence._

_I did react strongly to that comment, when in years past I’d only been amused or annoyed on your behalf about those assumptions. This is why: I sometimes think of and wish for such a union with you and I was concerned I’d made that desire detectable to an onlooker or, worse, you, with a look or gesture._

_I do have an ask of you and it’s a large one: That if, at any time, I make you uncomfortable that you will say so immediately and directly, rather than avoiding me. Would that be possible?_

_I will do my best to prevent this. I will continue to make every attempt to learn to cope with these feelings without burdening you with them._

_If you’d ever like to discuss this further, any method you could choose would be suitable to me._

_Otherwise, I will never bring this up again._

_-Numair_

The other page was a pressed flower that was endemic (and here he included a short definition) to the region and entirely self-pollinating, he believed, since no insect could survive in this cold. 

The next two letters he received were tales of a battle of wills between Alianne and her mother, which only made sense, since his explosive reply would require two days to reach her. 

The daily flow of letters did not stop. He allowed three to pile up, somewhat soothed by the fact that they continued to arrive, panicked at any possible contents.

The most recent one contained a paper covered in ink curved into impossibly ornate lines, in the pattern of a wave that faded into an apple. Daine included a very simple explanation.

_Kit learned a new spell yesterday. It’s lovely, isn’t it? I sent you the very first one. The second one I’ll keep for myself, I think._

There was no sign off at all.

He opened the next letter from her. It was a short description of a fistfight between two trainees, apparently regarding the question of who had vandalized whose saddle. 

The contribution from Kit was a rock. It was neither shiny nor symmetrical but Daine assured him it had been selected, after a lengthy contemplation, specifically for him. 

He finally opened the oldest, first one. 

Kit’s gift for him was another ornate inkspell, this time the shape of a horse that blurred into a lion. It had a silvery hue. 

_Here is what I did, since as you know I’m at Pirate’s Swoop right now. I took that letter to Gimpy and all of her daughters and sons and they all agreed it smelled like you, and me, and a raven and no one else. I showed the first bit to George and he said he was sure that it was your handwriting. Then I let Alanna read the whole thing. She said she wasn’t aware of any spell that would work for this long, or over this distance, or even at all against someone at your power level. Then she said that the only surprise was that you ever actually said something._

_Rather than at the declaration itself._

_Then I suppose someone overheard so I spent the rest of the night getting pitying looks from every adult that’s ever met both of us and most of the Riders. Then Aly and Alan both asked me how I possibly couldn’t have known and they just turned 11._

_Onua laughed until she cried.  
_ _  
_ _It seems I am the only one who was surprised. And I’m not sure that word is half strong enough._

_We have plenty to talk about, I think._

_I’m not ready to get engaged, at all, to anyone, this instant._

_But assuming that romance and sex and all doesn’t ruin how well we’ve always gotten along (that’s happened sometimes, with boys I otherwise quite enjoyed) and I don’t think that it will, we can revisit that question in a year or two._

_If that would work for you._

_If this is in fact some kind of joke that I don’t understand, though Thom has told me that’s ridiculous: Please ignore everything else. Thank you for the flower. If they haven’t got any pollinators, how do they not get inbred?_

_All my love,_

_Daine_

  
  


_I’m very sorry for the delay. It took me days of perhaps the worst spellcraft of my career to work up to actually opening the envelopes and reading the contents. And even then it was only because I assumed I’d already imagined every sentiment they could possibly contain and was seeking only confirmation._

_That, it turns out, was not actually the case._

_No, I wasn’t joking. At all. I’m not sure where one would even begin to find the humor there, though jokes that amuse you occasionally escape me._

_To say that that offer would work for me is a grand understatement. I am very surprised but so extremely pleased. The prospect of ironing out details and timelines and being mocked for actually believing that secret had been well-kept is a delightful one. I have been told that my good cheer is "grating" and "unmanly" by several village men._

_Would you enjoy the yak? It seems I cannot gift it to any one villager without causing violent jealousy in the others. I truly believe that the blacksmith’s daughter, whose custody I so narrowly avoided, could have never been pursued this fervently._

_The flowers thriving to this extent in isolation is a mystery indeed. I will update you if some other explanation makes itself known._

_I will see you next week._

_Love, sincerely, in many senses,_

_Numair_

  
  



	3. Uninhibited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some references to date rape drugs. Be told.

It was a nice way to wake up, at first. Someone smoothed his hair back from his forehead and as soon as he began to stir pressed a completely full flagon of water into his hand. His head was pounding and he sucked down the entire bottle in a few moments.

“Slow down,” Daine soothed. “Or you’ll be sick. Sicker, I would guess.”

Numair set upright and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Daine.”  
  
“I’m here.” She pressed a clean shirt into his hands.

“Good morning. I suppose my question is why.” He shoved his arms through, at first through the hole intended for the neck. He paused, re-oriented and finally located the intended ones.

“Mostly to apologize. And make sure you’re doing okay. And I guess give you the option of steering clear of me for a while. Not permanently, I’m hoping, but I think I’m getting ahead of myself.”

He suddenly felt extremely awake and absolutely full of a thick dread. 

“What happened? Did I--”  
  
“No,” She sighed. Her face was crimson. Her gaze was firmly on the ground. She sat down next to him on the bed, careful that no part of their bodies touched. “You didn’t do anything wrong at all. Please don’t worry about anything like that.”

“Then what is there to--”

“I’m guessing you don’t remember.”

He sat perfectly still and attempted to will the night back to him. “You are absolutely right. I don’t. We had dinner together, then played cards with Onua, then you showed me a card trick that Evin had taught you. But that was only the early evening.”  
  
“It was,” She nodded slowly. “But I had all night to think about this. And then this morning I could hear Sarge yelling at the recruit that did it. I know he got kicked out, at least. And Onua reported him to the Temple of the Goddess.” 

“I don’t follow, Magelet.”  
  
Daine took a moment to visibly force back tears. “That’s because I’m not explaining this very well. You had the plum cordial, right?”

“Yes.”

“I had the strawberry.”

He blinked slowly. “Strawberry is your favorite.”

“It is.” She pressed a second flagon of water into his hand and he sucked that down too. 

“Daine, what does the fruit punch have to do with anything? It wasn’t even alcoholic.”

She took a couple of shaky breaths. “Well, it wasn’t supposed to be. But some recruit poured in Goddess-knows-what into it. Apparently he’d failed to woo his desired lady by traditional means. I guess he knew which one she’d drink from.”

“Is that girl--”

She put a hand on his and then yanked it back as though his skin had scalded her. “No, no. She’s shaken, obviously, but completely fine. I heard Buri found him trying to walk her back to his rooms. That did not end well for him.”  
  
He smiled for the first time since she’d walked in. “I can imagine.” Daine still looked absolutely grey. “Then what...”  
  
“Anyway, you had the plum drink.”  
  
“Quite a lot, I imagine. It was a hot night. It had been tampered with?”  
  
“Yes.” Her voice could barely be heard even though they were sitting quite close. 

“Magelet. What happened after that?” He took one breath and then another. “Did I say something to you?” 

She shrugged a single shoulder. “You had a lot to say.”

Numair felt himself blanche. Daine noticed and then continued, clearly intending to sooth him. “Nothing bad. You were downright complimentary. Which is probably when I should’ve realized that something was wrong.”

“Oh,” He inhaled and exhaled, focusing on the actions and fighting back dread, trying not to imagine too vividly some drug-induced but worse, heartfelt, declaration of love. “When did you realize something was wrong?”  
  
Daine sucked in a massive breath. “Not until much later.”

“How much later? What did I do---”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” She said, again, firmly.

“Then what--”  
  
“You did kiss me,” She told him softly, looking straight down. “But you were very polite about it. And then we ended up spending the rest of the party out behind a hay bale. And then I tried to go back to your rooms with you and realized you couldn’t even walk in a straight line, nevermind anything else. One of the healers looked you over and said that you would be okay to sleep it off. Sarge made sure you made it back instead of draping yourself across some horse fence somewhere.”

Numair stared at her, hard. “Not to be indelicate, but did we--”

“No,” Daine was whispering now. “You asked but the ground was too muddy.”

Dozens of questions rattled in his head but one quickly leapt to the forefront. “Wait. I invited you to have sex behind a hay bale.”

“You did.”

“With me.”

She cocked her head, slightly amused. “There wasn’t anyone else around.” 

“Your only objection was the mud?”

Daine closed her eyes to wince, her face turning an even deeper shade of scarlet. “Yes. I honestly didn’t understand that you weren’t sober until later, after.”

He touched her shoulder carefully. “Daine. I’d only been drinking fruit juice. I’m guessing I didn’t smell like alcohol.”

“You didn’t taste like it neither.” A whisper he pretended not to hear. 

“I really don’t see how you could’ve known.”

“I should’ve, I think.” She whispered. “You seemed so happy. And, well, interested. In me.”

“We didn’t have sex.” He repeated again, firmly. 

“Not exactly.” This was clearly the topic she’d liked least the entire morning. She didn’t even try to look at him.   
  
“Can I ask what, precisely, we did do?”  
  
Daine shut her eyes tightly and then took a long, deep breath. “I knelt on your cloak so that’s probably ruined now. I’ll get you a new one next market day. I reckon it’s the least I can--”  
  
“Was I aggressive or insistent?”   
  
“No, not at all.” Daine repeated, firmly. “You always asked. You asked if you could kiss me, you asked if I’d like to step away. You asked if you could.... Well, anyway. You asked and I said yes. Honestly.”

“I just asked. And then you agreed.” Numair was sputtering now. He could feel a blush working its way across his neck.    
  
Her brow furrowed slightly. “Yes.”   
  
“But...” He tried to find the words. “You had the strawberry cordial?”   
  
“I did.” Daine told him.

“Which was not interfered with in any way?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I remember the whole night just fine.”

“Were you drunk, then?”   
  
“No,” She made her voice calm and soothing. “No. I was fine. Really.”

“Then...” Numair was laboring here to reach the conclusion. “You’re the only person that I propositioned?”

She laughed at that but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Yes. Just me, for whatever that’s worth. No one who was married or anything.”

“And you accepted. That proposition. From me. Under no coercion whatsoever.”

Her brow knitted, she looked over at him slightly concerned. “I knew exactly what I was doing. Well, I mean, I understood exactly what I was doing myself. Obviously I didn’t know that you weren’t all the way there.”

“Can I ask...” He could feel himself staring at her. “Do you regret that?”   
  
Daine looked over at him with raised eyebrows. “Of course. Seeing as you have no recollection and now we’re sitting here having this lovely chat.”

“I mean,” Numair tried again. “Had that not been the case. I suppose. Would you...” The sentence died an inelegant death. 

“Are you still drugged?” Daine demanded. 

“No,” He spoke. “No, I feel fine now.”

“Okay,” She said. “But you seemed fine last night too, until you didn’t.”

He rose to his feet steadily and walked to the door and back. He even paused to yank on a pair of pants. 

Daine actually laughed, however shortly. “Okay, I guess you are feeling better.”

“Can I ask.” Numair stopped speaking as he reached for the words.

“You can ask whatever you like,” Daine looked impressively miserable. “I’m the most embarrassed I can remember being but I think the truth is the very least you’re owed. That’s more important, I reckon.” 

“I’m not really sure how to word this. I truly do not mean any offense or to make any hypocritical judgements of female value.”   
  
“Out with it, please.” 

“Do you think you would have agreed had it been any number of men asking?”

She laughed and he felt himself relax. “Definitely not. That is a short list indeed.”

“Who precisely comprises it?”

Daine’s eyebrows were raised, surprised and he cut off her reply. “Ignore that, please. I’m sure that I don't want to know.”

Numair stood up and splashed water on his face and began tugging his hair into some kind of more orderly chaos. Numair grabbed a third flagon to sip on steadily and sat back down.

“Are you okay?” She finally asked after a long moment where he only stared at the wall. 

“Yes. A little startled but I’m not upset.” 

Daine nodded and eased into standing. “Do you want me to leave you for a bit? Or for longer. Or to not touch you for a while?”

“No,” Numair said, clearly surprising her with how quick and decisive the answer was. “I don’t want any of that.” 

Daine smiled a little bit, more sincerely now, and took a shaky little breath. She sat back down, a bit closer now. “Thank you. I am sorry.”

“Magelet. Even if I minded, I don’t think it would be fair to blame you.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Fair doesn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

He kissed her forehead. She leaned into the touch for a long moment, clearly still reveling in her relief. 

“Do you think I may have bespelled--”

“No,” Daine dismissed the notion completely. “No. I made those choices over hours and I wasn’t looking into an opal.” 

“Sometimes it can be very difficult to know-”

She cut him off again, unapologetically. “No. I’m positive.”  
  
“It’s not something I ever would have done in my right mind-.”

Daine scoffed. “Of course not.”

“But were I to actually seriously attempt it I would have no trouble-”

She finally put her hand on his to stall him. “I wouldn’t have ever refused that kind of offer from you and I didn’t. You definitely didn’t use sorcery to convince me because you would’ve never needed to.”

He opened his mouth to say something and the words did not arrive. He closed it. 

“Well, I’m sorry to have ambushed you with this first thing in the morning but I was worrying myself sick.” She stood up and grabbed a bundle wrapped in brown cloth. “You’ve been very kind to me. This morning, especially, but for years before that. I’m very lucky.”  
  
That at least he knew how to answer. “I am, moreso, I think.”

She smiled, looking lighter than she had all day. The knowledge that she genuinely expected some kind of reckoning, even a permanent parting, over what was fundamentally a misunderstanding twisted at him. “I brought some breakfast, too. They had the cheese rolls this morning and some of the pinker apples.”

“Do you...” He inhaled and tried again. “Please correct me if I am misunderstanding you.”  
  
“I haven’t hesitated yet.” 

“Could I ask.”  
  
Daine chewed and swallowed her apple. “Ask away.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I’m pretty sure we’ve already been over the worst of it.”

“Why did you say yes?”

She looked at him again, briefly drawing her eyebrows together. “I’m really not sure how to answer that.”  
  
“Could you please try?”

“Sure.” Daine patted his hand and pointed her gaze skyward. “Well, I trust you. You’re attractive. And I didn’t think I’d ever get any chance. With you, I mean.”

He released a slow breath through his teeth as he pondered the many possible meanings of those last four words. He tried again. “What result were you hoping for?”

Daine was actually smiling now, at his expense, of course. “I didn’t think you’d need that kind of explanation but I’m happy to outline the specifics for you, if it’d help.”

Numair felt himself blush. “It would not, actually.” 

She let the moment pass and rested her forehead against his shoulder. “All right. How about you just ask me whatever it is you want to know instead of driving yourself, and then me, crazy about it?”

He wavered, drumming his fingers on the blanket. “It’s not my intention to make you uncomfortable or suggest any obligation.”

“I never would’ve assumed that.” 

He managed to make it to a wash basin before he was actually sick. He asked Daine to leave and she ignored him with a heartfelt eyeroll. She handed him a soft cotton cloth, yet another water basin and then sent for and tipped a chambermaid.

“I’ll leave you to sleep the rest of it off,” She assured him mildly. 

Daine hesitated for a long moment and he prompted her through a mouthful of tooth scrub. 

“I’ll see you later?” She sounded cautious. 

“I would assume so.” Daine looked for a long moment at his baffled face and then nodded, apparently satisfied. 

He joined her in the library late that afternoon. The smile she gave him was nervous and she could only manage eye contact for a tiny, cringing moment. The tension in her shoulders loosened considerably when he hugged her tightly in greeting and then sat down next to her, with a stack of texts on chemical compositions. 

They spent the next few hours there, mostly in companionable silence, sometimes bringing up a thought or question their respective research had taken them to. He asked if she’d mind some company on her walk back to the Rider’s barracks and was rewarded with a bright, relieved smile. 

“So how are you feeling?” She finally ventured, cautiously, when no one else was in earshot.

“Much better, now. Thank you.”

“Oh. I’m glad. But I more meant about me. I mean, if you’re feeling uncomfortable with me. Or whatever else. I would understand.” She added quickly, inclining her head to avoid looking at him. 

He took a deep breath and then released it. “My only real regret about the entire incident is that I can’t recall any specifics.” 

She groaned and rested her forehead against his upper arm for a moment. “All right. Is there an amount of detail I can give you right now where we could lay this whole thing, permanently, to rest?”

“Daine. Are you willing to continue with our day of uncomfortable conversations or would you like me to leave it alone for the night? Or even indefinitely?”

Daine sighed. “Let’s go ahead and hear it now, please. I can’t imagine I’ll be any more eager in the morning. And you’re more than entitled to whatever information you’d like. ”

“It’s kind of you to offer but I don’t believe I require a detailed outline of what happens behind hay bales.”

“Oh, good. In front of them, then?”

“All I actually meant is that it’s a memory I would’ve liked having.”

She looked up at his face, clearly taken aback. “I’m glad to see you feel up to joking.”

He realized that they’d stopped walking now, near a fenced pasture. “You have been exceptionally honest with me today, Magelet.”  
  
“I think I actually only met the most bare standard of the word. And believe you me, I was sorely tempted to do otherwise.”  
  
“Well, I suppose I’ll attempt to follow in your good example. I spent the entire afternoon pondering whether there are words to delicately inquire whether or not that was an invitation that would ever be accepted again. For whatever it’s worth, I of course understand that a refusal is both probable and well within your rights.”  
  
“Oh.” She squinted up at him like his face expression was written in the smallest print. “No, I don’t think there was some better way to ask that.”

“Well, if you think of one I’m certainly open to being corrected.” He felt himself blush crimson and in the intervening silence waited patiently for the most important relationship in his life to implode. 

Daine grabbed his hand before she spoke. “And if there was I really don’t care. And yes. Absolutely. Anytime.” 

Numair felt a smile stretch across his face. “That’s very good to know.”

“You only ask out of curiosity?” Her body language had changed completely. She was facing him now, standing a distance away that would have been much too close for anyone else, looking up at him with her head tilted just so. 

It took him a whole second to look away, to swallow and then respond. 

“No. That would be ridiculous. That is something I’ve wanted. Still want. I wasn’t exactly surprised to hear that I’d...”

Daine laughed at him. “Made an attempt?”

“Yes. I suppose” He hesitated again for a long moment, drumming his fingers against the fencepost.

Daine sighed, tension again lining her neck and let his hand drop from hers. “All right. Out with it, please.”

He nodded a slow assent. “I would mostly be interested within the context of a relationship.”

“Great.” She was grinning now. 

“‘Great’?”

“Yes. We’re in agreement, then.” She turned into him and hugged him tightly around his waist. She’d done that many times but she’d never slid her hands under his shirt to deliberately touch his skin or pressed herself against him so closely or made a quiet little breathy  _ sigh _ against his chest that briefly ceased all higher thought.

“So you’re really feeling better?” She asked, all smugness and confidence and cheek.

“Yes,” He replied slowly. “I am.”

“Lovely,” She rested her arm on his and turned around with him.

“Daine?” 

“I”d prefer yours, I think.” She caught his eye again.

“Oh.” He inhaled and tried to sound less poleaxed, pulling her close. It felt correct and comfortable. He inhaled to ask her another question before he realized he already had all of the answers that he needed.    
  



	4. Arranged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quarantine!

“You’re considering it.” It took her two tries to get the entire sentence out. 

He felt himself blush. “Yes. I am. I do want children and I don’t want to be in my forties by the time I’m having them. I always thought I would eventually meet someone I wanted to marry, deeply, without reservation, but perhaps that would have happened by now if it was going to. If we meet and neither of us are horrified by the other’s appearance, if she is comfortable with the hours I keep and my relationship with you, if her goals and desires from this union are compatible with mine, I will probably proceed.”

Daine took a long shuddering breath.

Numair continued, more hesitantly. “I know it’s old fashioned and more than a little embarrassing that it’s come to this, but I don’t think I have any lesser chance of happiness than anyone else. I do hope you don’t think less of me.”

“So if I understand you, you’re looking to settle down with a woman who is both young enough to have children and wants them. Jon has requested, for his own sake and for Roald’s, that if you have an arranged marriage it would be with another mage.”

“Yes, precisely.”  
  
“And of course I don’t think less of you, don’t be stupid. You have every right to do this and I wish only for your happiness if you do.”

“Thank you. I admit I was particularly concerned about your opinion.”  
  
“And that’s sweet and all. But, well, if you only want a female mage you get along all right with.”

“Out of the listed characteristics, mage is by far the one I’m the most prepared to be flexible about.”

“Well, I mean,” She took a deep breath and explained her position to her shoes. “There’s always me.”  
  
He wouldn’t have been more surprised if she’d declared an ambition to relocate to Carthak. “I’m sorry?”  
  
Her head dropped even lower so that he could not meet her eyes. “Well, I do want children. And I’d be happy to have them sometime in the next five years.”   
“You had told me that before. The first part, at least.”

“I don’t think my looks are horrifying, but it would be your opinion that mattered there.”

“No, of course not.” He told her automatically. Numair actually considered the question for a moment and then continued, hearing the shock in his own voice. “You _are_ quite attractive. Objectively.”

Daine continued, heedless. “You can say no, obviously. Of course. I expect that you will but at least this way I’ll have said my piece and that will be that.”

“What would your piece entail, precisely?” He said, absently, still trying to remember what year she’d become pretty.  
  
“Oh.” Daine fidgeted some more. “Just that if you’re looking to marry and aren’t feeling picky, I’d like to be considered. That’s pretty much it.”

“But why?” Numair stared down at her. “You’re only twenty. Even assuming that children are crucial to you, you could take another decade to meet someone you would be excited about building a life with.” Something twisted a bit at the notion and with the ease of long practice he refused to ponder the practical facts of her inevitable marriage.  
  
“Well, that would generally be good advice. Except that I already did. Meet someone that I feel that way about.”

“Oh.” He was surprised to find he was distinctly unhappy at the prospect but continued anyway. “Is this fellow already married, then?”

“No, but soon enough.”  
  
He found himself standing there, trying to search through their list of mutual male acquaintances for engaged ones, trying to fathom who among her many casual beauxs had seemed special at all to her.

Daine slowly sank her face into her hands before clarifying for him, her palms muffling the words. “That would be you. I’m referring to you.”

“Oh.”  
  
She raised her head slightly, squared her stance and took a deep breath. “And look, it’s fine. I’m really not what you’d usually go for and I always knew that.”

“How long has that been-”

She didn’t allow him to complete the question. “A couple of years, I think. But don’t worry. It only took me about fifteen minutes to reckon that wasn’t something that’d ever be happening. And in any case, thank you.”  
  
Numair blinked down at her. “For what?”  
  
“For saying you wouldn’t marry someone that wanted me gone.”  
  
“Of course not. I’ll never part with you of my own volition. You’ll always be welcome anywhere that I am.” She flashed a brief, sad smile at him. 

They spent at least three nights a week reading a book together in the library, or going to stargaze or listening to a minstrel all the way from the Roof of the World. Weekend mornings they would walk out to birdwatch or eat apples together while they put together a special lesson plan for the squires or assembled notes on the distribution of merfolk. They both went to balls and parties but he still found himself returning to her again and again, for a dance, for her opinion on an idea from a winged human researcher from the South, to make sure she’d seen that there was coconut cake at the banquet table. She flitted casually from man to man; he was dimly aware of their collective existence but knew little beyond their names, nothing of why she came to them in particular, or however they inevitably parted. 

“Are you all right?”  
  
“I’m fine,” He told her. “I’m just thinking.” Numair looked her over. She had probably been lovely for years. He wondered how he’d missed that. Daine noticed the inspection and blushed brightly. 

He winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it that obvious.”

She shrugged, wrapping her arms around her middle. “Well, I’d be a hypocrite if I pitched a fit now. Anyway, the squires are moving on to stormwing tactics next week. We’ll get twenty minutes, then they’re bringing in Sarge and someone from the army. They’ll mostly want us to cover their magic, I imagine, though we hardly could hardly have more experience with that nonsense.”

Daine slid into a chair in his study and began rooting around for paper.

The best days of his life were ones where he was with her from early in the morning until they parted to sleep. What they were actually doing was a secondary, even distant consideration. Sometimes they were apart for weeks, less commonly months, while one of them did work without the other. Days without her were a lot more productive, but quiet, almost lonely. Probably he’d be expected to spend many of his spare hours with his wife and later children, instead. Probably he should want to. 

“Daine.”

She looked up from a packet of notes he’d taken on the social structure of different Stormwing flocks. “Hm?”

“Do you feel you’re actually at a point in your life where you’d like to get married and have children?”

Daine sighed with the spectacular failure of her attempt to change the subject. “Specifically with you, sure. That sounds lovely.” 

He stared up at the ceiling for another long moment. She was constantly within arms reach and pondering a future where that had changed physically hurt.

“Do you wish that I hadn’t said anything?” Daine looked over at him with hesitation he hadn’t inspired in years. 

“No.” He hesitated and decided to return some of her remarkable honesty. “I don’t wish that at all.”

Something in his tone made her smile softly and tuck an errant curl behind her ear in a vulnerable, charming motion and the world shifted three degrees East around him. 

It occurred to him distantly that there was actually a very good reason that every single woman he’d ever been involved with had been discomforted, initially by her existence and then later by how much they interacted and how. One particularly astute prospect had told him that she had no interest in competing with someone he watched like she was the sunrise. He’d apologized to her and she’d only laughed. 

Numair leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. He’d been grateful that she’d never been seriously involved with anyone and upon reflection pleased that on the rare occasion that she introduced him to one of them it was not he who promptly became a third wheel. He treasured her attention and her friendship and even her love, though that word could mean so many things. He wasn’t sure that a single one of them didn’t apply here. 

He’d been regularly accused of an attraction to her for seven years now and he was trying to find the place, the moment where that had become the truth.

She was looking over at him nervously, with a tiny sliver of hope. “Are you ready to talk about the stormwings?”

“No,” He told her absently and then forced himself back into this present moment, equal parts sublime and bizarre. “I’m still thinking.”  
  
Daine nodded slowly and then prompted. “About?”

“I had not consciously considered you as a romantic prospect prior to this exact moment, which I hope you don’t take as an insult.”

“I don’t see why I would.” 

“Well, now that I am, there’s rather a lot to consider.” His voice had cracked. As though puberty were not twenty years behind him or perhaps dignity were a thing reserved for other people. 

Daine nodded again, turning pink. It was adorable and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes away from her mouth, which was ridiculous, as he’d seen it many thousands of times previous. 

They would dance together and embrace and she would rest against him in the quiet moments they were granted among so many loud ones. Many times, whenever someone had asked, he’d said simply that they were dear friends, the “shut up” being heavily implied and almost always respected. Those moments of contact were thrilling even in retrospect and he tried to pry details from the memories, to decide if he’d ever touched her when there was no platonic reason to. The positive answer was so obvious and overwhelming. 

It was a bit like waking up to a Carthaki crocodile in his bedchamber and being assured by a number of reliable friends that it had been there for years, that he’d simply been getting dressed and bedding down and reading books around it. 

Numair had never hesitated to touch her before. He delicately traced the edge of her face with a single fingertip. She startled and then froze, closing her eyes against the touch. The expression on her face was as thrilling as it was sweet. 

He swallowed and flattened his palm against her face. She brought her own hand up against his. 

“Would it be all right-”  
  
“Yes,” Daine whispered, not opening her eyes to look at him. 

He leaned forward and kissed her, intending to be gentle, even chaste. He’d even wondered whether he’d find it awkward or sexless.

He did not. In the slightest.

Her response was immediate and eager, pressing hard into him. She allowed him to pull away for only a moment, with a soft “Oh,” that was thrilling beyond anything he could immediately remember. She pulled him back to her and he went, willing, gasping for breath. 

She was warm and soft and willing beneath his hands and he was struck suddenly with the strong desire to slide his fingers into her waistband or perhaps just under her shirt, to press her into the wall or perhaps the mattress in just the next room. 

Daine pulled away for exactly as long as it took to straddle his lap, hesitating for just long enough to ask him in a small voice if he was sure. 

He was felt himself wheeze “Yes,” trying to reconcile his throbbing pulse and spinning head and insistent logic-crushing spikes of desire with the fact that he’d only kissed her on the mouth. 

“I didn’t know that I...”

“Well, if it helps, I didn’t know that you did either.” She looked happy and relaxed, two words that were so rarely applied to her, with just the very edge of wariness. She looked into his face like it was a diagram she had to label. “It’s not like you can’t still change your mind. Okay?”

He felt his own brow furrow and wrapped one arm around her and then the second, drawing her hips more firmly into his. She grunted under the weight but didn’t do anything but wriggled closer. “I think it’s very much like that, Magelet. I believe that’s precisely the case.”

Her answering smile was hesitant and then blinding.   
  


  
  
  
  
  


  
  



	5. Apology

Daine spent her entire lunch picking nervously at potato rolls and lentils and taking exceptional care to not look at him. Later, she’d stood a full foot away and then asked in a small voice if she could please speak with him.

Onua tilted her head at the younger girl in a silent question and Daine forced a smile in response. She then walked with him into a courtyard maintaining arms length with the care of a soldier in formation. 

She turned to face him. Her blush descended past the collar of her shirt and her eyes were fixed firmly on the ground. “I owe you an apology. Probably a lot more than one, actually.”

The silence stretched on. 

“Do I get to know for what?” Numair tried to remember if any of his books had come back with odd stains or bites missing or if his favorite heavy cloak had again become a fox maternity convalescence. 

She scowled for a moment. “Yes. Of course.”

He waited and was met with only more silence. “Do I get to know now?”

“You do.” The words were wedged out through gritted teeth. “You’re my best friend in the entire world.”

He smiled down at her, pleased. Daine did not return the expression. “Which I am sure I’ll learn to forgive you for, in time.”

“No, I mean. I’ve been using that.”

Numair took a moment. “I don’t follow, Magelet.”

“Of course you don’t.” She muttered. A chickadee fluttered down to her shoulder and she offered it a bit of shredded roll from her pocket without thinking. “We’re very close.”

“We are.” He agreed and waited more.

The deep breath she drew was shaky. “And I’ve been using that to behave--Well, I’ve basically been using that to push physical boundaries for months under the guise of friendship. What I should’ve done is just given you the opportunity to turn me down directly but I was too much of a coward and now here we are. It was a shameful way to go about things and I’m sorry and Gods if a man had done what I had there probably would’ve been some violence.” 

He took entire seconds to try and parse just what she was saying. 

“Turn you down for what?”

She forgot to be embarrassed for a moment and gestured vaguely at the air. “Romance. A courtship. I probably would’ve settled for a bit of fun.”

“You’re joking.” He forced a short chuckle. 

Daine crumpled like a damp rag. “I don’t see how anyone could find this funny.”

“So if I understand you correctly you’re saying that...” He thought back to the past months, head spinning. She’d taken to kissing his cheek as a greeting and jokingly sitting on his lap. She’d consistently pressed up directly against him at campfires, even if the log was six feet long or one seat of four. She’d touch his hip instead of his shoulder to get his attention, which Daine seemed to need quite often. Several nights a week, they’d spend evenings together in the library, reading books with her feet in his lap or shoulder against his chest.

He would have understood the behavior immediately coming from any other female. In this case, he had assumed she was simply wanting affection and reminders of her own humanity from someone she trusted absolutely. Or possibly she sought to make someone age appropriate jealous or even that he had, three years now since the barrier fell, gone insane. He had devoted far more time than was healthy coming up with these theories. 

“So that time we shared a bedroll.” Numair prompted. 

Daine flushed anew. “A raccoon really had rended mine open. But I definitely could’ve made the time to repair it.”

“It looked completely destroyed.”

She shrugged again. “Some of the stuffing had come out. I could’ve sewed it back in a couple of hours on horseback. But I didn’t. Deliberately. As a strategy.”

Numair stared at her. “To what end, Magelet?”

Daine’s wince deepened. “I was hoping that you hadn’t remembered that.” 

Every night on the road, no matter how they’d fallen asleep, he woke up to her face pressed into his neck and legs tangled with his. An exquisite hell he’d been far too old to be so reactive to. The whole week had been a frigid slog, interspersed with lacerating shame and arousal that could not be addressed. 

“I actually remember that extremely clearly.” 

“Perfect,” She responded, now offering the songbird’s entire extended family her uneaten lunch in her upturned palms.

He continued, pleased to draw together the baffling trends of the prior months into a unified pattern. “You haven’t had any swains at all this year.”

“No one regular, no.” Daine shifted from foot to foot. A chickadee picked at her shirt seam. When it failed to become edible, it returned its focus to her lentils. 

“And you’ve been having me fasten dresses or help adjust ties.”

“True,” She said and managed a feeble smile. “Though Kit always had to help me re-do them.” 

“At balls I had noticed your increased tendency to-” Numair felt himself grinning and wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to stop. The idea that she would approach him, ever, under any circumstance he could fathom, had felt like a ludicrous desire best shared only with Spots until twenty minutes ago. 

“Correct again.” She cut him off. “If it gave me some excuse to touch you, I was doing it.”

He inhaled to ask if her more regular use of make-up had been associated with this exercise and she interrupted, in a tone that was almost business-like, had her voice not cracked. “Can we be done with this, please?”

“When you say this you are referring to-”

“This conversation. I know one of the great joys in your life is finding absolute answers to bothersome questions. Usually it’s charming. Sometimes it’s saved my life. But I am at my limit for humiliation for the afternoon, if not the whole season.”

“I didn’t intend--”

“I know,” Daine reached out to touch his shoulder and then thought better of it. She took an entire step further back. “You have not once intended me harm. I’m really sorry about--” She gestured to the courtyard and the birds and the windows and the widening space between them. “All this. I am. And I hope that you’re still comfortable working with me..” 

“Of course,” he responded. “There is little you could do to be rid of me.”

“That’s very generous of you.”  
  
“I’m sorry to be a bit slow, but what you’re saying--”

Daine interrupted. “Obviously, this is some sort of grand joke to you.” She gestured at the apparently unstoppable broad grin on his face. “At some point, I hope, it’ll be funny to me too.”

“If I’d minded, I would have asked you to stop.” He blurted out, wanting to smooth the grey misery off of her face and explain the radiant joy in his own.

She sighed heavily as a chickadee helped itself to a flyaway strand of hair for some winter nesting material. “I know you didn’t mind. Because to mind you would’ve had to notice.”

“I assure you I noticed.” He protested. 

Daine scoffed and stared straight at him. “I threw myself at you for an entire Winter and Spring and now the better part of Summer, in every possible manner of dress and setting. I was persistent and so very obvious. ” 

“I’ll admit I didn’t realize that’s what was happening at the time.” 

“Last Spring I sat in your lap in a dress made out of perhaps two yards of fabric.”

“You did.” He had revisited that moment often but at random: When he paused to think of what to say next, when he woke up in the morning and in the midst of tasks both mundane and crucial. 

“Your response was to tell me about Sukiyako’s Theorem of Immortal Evolution for twenty minutes.”

“I’m sorry about-”

She cut him off. “Don’t be. It was a perspective on the relationship between horses and hurrocks I hadn’t considered before. And this is absurd. Sweet, but still absurd. It’s not your job to comfort me that my,” she paused for a moment to gather the correct words “Daft campaign of harassment, I suppose, did not lead to the result I’d wanted.”

“I didn’t feel harassed.” That was true. He’d been confused and ecstatic and pointlessly guilty and even uncertain of his own perceptions but never uncomfortable. 

“You’re a tolerant soul. Perhaps too much so.” The food was gone and he knew that the wane smile on her face was exclusively for the sparrows. She brushed the tiniest crumbs off of her shirt and tied her hair back again. She was preparing to return to her day, with the horses and the recruits. Daine would consider the matter settled. He did not know how or when or even if he could go about revisiting it. 

“What outcome did you want?”

Her mouth formed into a thin line. “You heard me just fine the first time.”

“I’m not--” Numair forced himself to pause and actually form a sentence. “I wouldn’t ask if the answer wasn’t important.”

Her voice was lower now. “I already told you and you laughed.”  
  
“I genuinely thought that you were joking. I am sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s fine. It is. I tried for a time and now I need to move along. Which will doubtless be a relief to you.” 

“No, that would not be a relief, actually.” 

Daine looked up at him, now scowling. “I am fully capable of choosing which men to bed for myself, thanks. I suppose you probably enjoyed your vacation from side-eyes at balls and interrogations over dinner more than you minded a child trailing after you like a terrier. I’m fully aware that you haven’t cared for a single hair on any one of their heads but none of ‘em ever did me real harm.”

Numair felt himself flush and tried again. “I know that in the past I’ve-”

Daine interrupted him. “I know you mean well, seeing as I’m fresh out of family who might take on such a chore.”

She was speaking confidently, with words she’d previously planned and considered, into organized sentences that were recognizable as Common. Something about the casual way she declared herself to lack kin twisted his insides. 

Conversely, Numair stood silent and sputtering in the presence of this pervasive yet private desire, appearing here on a cloudy afternoon in the Spring, now growing increasingly annoyed with his silence. 

“I wouldn’t quite say that I view you as family.” He started, wanting to clarify and explain. 

Throughout this encounter, he’d had dozens of concepts churning and somehow managed to, every last time, pick precisely the worst one to speak aloud as a sentence

Numair remembered briefly a moment last Summer when Alanna had casually offered to introduce him to an older Queen’s Rider she was hosting as a prospective match. Daine had momentarily dimmed, brows lowering and slumping forward, much like she was doing at this precise moment. She’d forced a smile seconds afterwards and he was so incredibly stupid to have wasted so many months not noticing that, for some reason, he of all people was going to get exactly what he wanted most. 

“I didn’t mean-” He started again, still utterly incapable of not smiling hugely. 

“It’s okay. Really.” Daine insisted thickly. “I ambushed you with this, so you can hardly be blamed for your indelicate phrasing and it’s nothing I didn’t need to hear.” 

“If I’d had a sister--please let me finish. If I’d had a sister, I am positive I would regard her in an entirely different way than I regard you.”

“I know you want to make this right for me. But I’m pretty sure time is the only thing that’ll be able to do that and I’d just as soon get started right now. And maybe I have gotten too attached to you.”

“That is completely absurd.” He at least knew the words to address this concern. “I’m quite devoted to your happiness and at least equally fond of you. Please believe me when I say I simply misspoke.”

She eyed him with the suspicion of a prey animal for a long moment. Finally she nodded once, relaxing slightly. Daine turned to depart with an awkward wave. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Would you stay a moment longer, please?” Numair reached out for her and then thought better of it.

“Fine.” Daine sighed heavily and he was relieved to see that annoyance was now the dominant emotion displayed on her face. 

“What result were you hoping for? What did you actually want?”

“You already asked me that.”  
  
“Daine.”

Her tone was flat, her face blank. “You.”

He forced himself not to smile. “In what sense?”

“We actually get along better and spend more time together than most married couples that I know. I guess basically what we have now plus sex and some kind of official status.” She shrugged. “But I suppose I’ll work it the other way around with some other fellow.” 

“Is that still something that you want?”

“I will move on. I promise. I’m not going to keep--” She waved her arms around at him and then at the general area. “Well, I’m not. Really. Please let it go.”

Numair took a deep breath and tried again. “If that was an option. Would that still be something you were interested in?”  
  
She sucked in a breath. “You are not an option. Obviously. I promise you that I understand that. Can we please save the hypotheticals for when I’m not feeling so raw about this?”

“If I’d understood that you were making an offer--”

“How could you not understand? I was hanging on you. Like a limpet on a rock. For months.”

“That is a very apt summary.” Numair sighed. “Please forgive my bluntness.”

“I’d be thrilled to,” Daine muttered darkly, “If there was any to apologize for.”  
  
“If I’d actually understood that you were making a deliberate romantic overture I would have been very pleased.”  
  
“What?” She stared at him, blinking rapidly. 

“I did not lack interest so much as comprehension.”

Her face contorted through too many emotions for him to follow, annoyance, disbelief, something like fondness, then renewed irritation. “But you aren’t this stupid. I didn’t think anyone could be.” 

Numair directed his gaze firmly to the ground. “While I’d like to agree, I think we are at this moment facing some compelling evidence to the contrary.”  
  
She seemed astonished. “You’re embarrassed.”  
  
“Not quite. If that offer is still open, I’d love to take you up on it.”

Disbelief remained the dominant expression on her face. “I kissed you on the mouth last month.”

That was true. Daine had, at a party, captured his face between her hands and clumsily mashed her own lips into his, to the riotous amusement of the other revelers. Her lips had lingered, her hand had rested against his neck for an almost endless moment before she turned away, blushing. She hadn’t been laughing at all.

It had been an act of great willpower to reflect on that incident only often. 

“I understood that to be the end result of a card game. Also, you seemed a bit drunk.”  
  
“That’s not how anything works. Not cards, not games, not kissing. I got to choose, you know. And of course I could’ve just not done it. And I’d only had a glass of wine at dinner.”  
  
“I didn’t know any of that, actually.”

“You could’ve asked.”  
  
“That honestly hadn’t occurred to me.” 

She stared up at him the same way she’d once tried to read a diagram of thoracic anatomy he’d drawn and then, completing the tragedy, labelled. 

“I’m sorry to continue to be a bit dim--” He began. 

“I’d hardly recognize you otherwise.” She muttered at him.

“But this conversation has been both rife with misunderstanding and concerns issues of some delicacy--”

“Yes. I mean. That offer is still open. Obviously. I didn’t change my mind this morning.”

He hugged her tightly for a long moment, allowing himself to bury his face in her hair. It was lovely, to not have to focus so hard on self-censor, to allow his hand to rest against her hip without immediately pretending it had been an accident. 

Her face was muffled against his chest. “I’m still sorry that I didn’t just talk to you. I didn’t mean any harm but it still would have been the more honest and probably a lot kinder.”

“I had that same power and never chose to use it.” Numair assured her. He noticed his hands were shaking.

She looked up at him again. “You do understand we’re talking about a romantic relationship. With me.”  
  
He felt himself turn vividly red. “Yes, Magelet. Yes.” 

  
  
  
  



	6. Urgency

The first time, she’d knocked softly until he opened the door, expecting some crisis. 

He’d asked her if she was okay, what had happened. She’d said that she was fine and nothing was wrong. He’d asked what conversation, then, couldn’t have waited until the morning. 

Daine had tried again, refusing to look at him. “I’m not here to talk.”

“All right. I can just--”  
  
“I don’t want you to listen, either.”

“Okay,” He’d rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Then what can I help you with?”

She’d stared up at him, embarrassment and irritation warring on her face while she waited for him to get it. He’d noticed, then, that she was in a fitted blue shift Thayet had gotten her last Beltane and that she smelled like vanilla. Because he’d complimented her in that same dress last week and bought her the scent himself on a loving whim. The effort and its effect were equally attractive and exciting. 

“...Oh.”

They’d spent whole seconds like that, just staring at each other before Daine had finally rallied. 

“Can I come in?” She asked softly and he’d traced her face with a single fingertip and then her neck. She had shuddered, closing her eyes at the touch. 

Daine asked again in an almost-normal tone and he’d managed to whisper yes.

She had, at least, curled against him under his slack arm for a dozen minutes before she rose, matter-of-factly scrubbed up and left. He hadn’t managed to assemble any words at all in his disbelieving post-orgasmic haze. 

He’d wondered if it would ever happen again but not for long. She’d arrived, knocking softly, the next night and then the one after that, and then most nights, for weeks. 

Then he just started leaving the door unlocked since the wards had never kept her out and she’d slip in, careful to wake him up from several steps away. They’d passed months like that. 

He’d lost weight. And whatever expression he wandered the palace with had Onua and Alanna demanding explanations, his inevitable punishment for making such perceptive friends, for being loved by such caring individuals. 

  
  


He’d been aware for some time now that he wanted something he hadn’t in fifteen years, specifically commitment, even permanence. He hadn’t ever decided if that element made the rest of what he wanted one bit better. Numair had, in his best or most drunk moments, understood that this feeling was entirely unique, consuming and eventually even accepted that it was never going away. He could sooner remove his own arm than stop feeling the hot, burning, shameful and incredibly stupid way that he felt.

It turned out that sex with her was only a small part of what he’d wanted and that the way they acted like friends in public maybe made him want to cry a little. 

Theoretically, he could request a relationship or at least a formalization of their arrangement. Then, inevitably, she’d politely extricate herself from him as “a bit of fun gone complicated”, the exact words she’d used to refer to more than two of her previous partners. Daine would remain at his side and his back regardless, he knew. She’d then find some other man, someone who did not want her partnership so desperately or at least had the self control not to tell her about it. 

That inevitability was going to be a slow death when it passed so he was putting it off as long as possible. 

He knew, at least, that he would have done anything and everything to keep Daine from any harm, even if that meant parting forever with the way she’d sigh into his neck or trace the bony ridges of his knuckles with her calloused fingertips. 

He just wasn’t nearly so careful with himself. 

He knew that something was wrong when she knocked on his doors after dinner, rather than just slipping in late that night. 

Numair caught only a glimpse of her face before she pressed it into his shoulder. It was the expression of someone that expected pain. “Daine?”   
“I’m so sorry.”

“Are you all right?”

She nodded, blinking her eyes too rapidly. He pulled her into a hug and then sank onto the bed with her in his lap, shoulder pressing into his chest. She leaned into the embrace with a sigh and he felt so relieved that leaning on each other, at least, still felt natural. It took her an entire minute to begin speaking but he knew that all she needed him to do was wait.

“Most of the things I got from my Da were wonderful. The things I can do with a bow aren’t natural. And I love being able to talk with the People. And you probably would’ve died if I couldn’t and that life hardly bears thinking about. This just never occurred to me.”

“Magelet?” He rubbed her back. “What are you talking about, darling?” He winced at the endearment but Daine didn’t seem to notice.

“Ma told me once. That the night she got with me, that Beltane she was with my Da. She had a charm on and she got with child anyway.”

“You’ve told me that before.” 

She looked up at him but the press of her warm body into his had always blunted his intelligence. “So I think that’s why.”

“Why what?”

“For me, the charm isn’t...Well, it didn’t work.”

“Ah. So you’re--”  
  
“Yes.” She didn’t let him say the word. 

“Oh.” He squeezed her tightly, burying his face into her hair so that she couldn’t see whatever vulnerable string of expressions were passing across his face, in the likely event that he couldn’t conceal his want and despair. 

“I’m so sorry. I honestly didn’t know.”

“What? No, of course not.” He rubbed her back, kissing her hair and then for a short, breathless moment, her lips. She responded, wrapping her arms around his neck, even though it was outside their typical boundaries and it was frankly pathetic how happy that tiny regard made him. “I had all of the same information that you did. It’s not anything I would have expected either.”

“Don’t forgive me too quickly.” She muttered, sounding exhausted.

“Forgive you?” He blinked rapidly. “For what? Why would you be at any more fault than me?”

“I appreciate you not asking whether or not it’s yours.”

He reached for the thread of the conversation again, not surprised to be unable to find the end of it. “I assume you would’ve mentioned, were you not sure.”   
“I would’ve.” She agreed.

“Also, Daine. I couldn’t blame you even if...Well, if I expected something exclusive then I should have asked for it.”

She stiffened and pulled away, putting her hands carefully in her lap. Daine was staring up at him now with narrow eyes and for the first time that whole week he understood what it was she needed to hear. “There hasn’t been anyone else, for me. That’s not what I’m saying.”

Daine nodded, relaxing just slightly against him again. “Me neither.” She muttered and he was so heinously relieved by that assurance, so thrilled by that moment of open possessiveness. “But anyway. It’s quite early yet. I can end it. I just thought you should know.”  
  
He paused to choose his words carefully. “I’m sure you wanted children at a time and with a partner of your own choosing. If that’s something you need to do then I understand. It’s nothing that I would ever hold against you.”

She scoffed at that a little. “No, I mean. It’s not me that I’m worried about. I don’t want you stuck with something you never asked for.” 

“That’s not exactly a possibility.”

“What? Why not?” 

“I do hope you know, that even if I did prefer this go no further, I’d never leave you in this alone.”

She stared up at him, brow crinkling. “Of course you wouldn’t. And what do you mean ‘if’?” 

He kissed her again, trying to memorize the feeling in preparation for a lifetime without it. She made a small noise and turned into him more completely, draping herself across his chest. 

When she pulled away her shirt was on the ground and her pulse leapt against his lips and teeth. She said something that was muffled by his shoulder and he sat up straight to look at her. “I know you can be a bit too gentle. Especially with me. I don’t want you living with this and doing right by me and all that other nonsense.”

He paused again, trying to ignore the sight of her bare thighs long enough to force some cognition, waiting for the moment that she would politely shove him away and return to being his dear friend and beloved colleague. “To make an understatement, I would not consider a child by you a burden honor demanded I bear.”

“What?” She was panting and he covered her mouth with his until she very gently guided him away, her hand rough against his cheek. “You aren’t, I don’t know, bothered?” 

He froze and she paused from unbuttoning his shirt. “No. Quite the opposite.”

“But...” She absent-mindedly removed her breastband, which obviously did not aid him in responding coherently. “You’ve never wanted anything like this with anyone. At least not since I’ve known you.”

“That’s true. But I don’t see why that trend would apply to you.”

“I know I’m, well, convenient. Which I’m fine with. It’s a choice I made with my eyes open. ”

He looked up at the ceiling, which only helped a little since she was pressing her hands into his hip bones, sliding a thumb along the lower boundary of his stomach. “Daine. I would never have gambled the friendship we have for something I could have gotten from someone else.”

Daine shrugged. “It’s all right. I wanted as much as I could get from you and I knew precisely what that was. It’s not your fault. ”

He interrupted her. “You misunderstand me.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” She acknowledged slowly. 

“I would prefer that this was coming to pass specifically because you wanted it to. In every other way, this is ideal.”

“You aren’t upset?” Clearly, she was still grappling with that concept, staring up at him with such bafflement on her face that he wondered briefly if he’d lapsed into one of the tongues of his childhood. 

“It’s everything I wanted and precisely who I wanted it with. Why would I be?”

“Really?” She cocked her head to the side. “Do you understand what it is I’m telling you? What’s going to happen come winter?”   
“I believe so, yes. The concept is not inherently complicated.”

“Okay. Could you just tell me what you want me to do?”

He inhaled to answer and she interrupted his nascent reply. “Let’s just pretend for a minute that what you want is all that matters.”

Numair closed his eyes, wondering for a moment just how Alanna could always find it in herself to be so brave. “A small ceremony as soon as is feasible, an announcement about the child shortly thereafter. Arranging childcare. Updating my will. More immediately, some kind of public acknowledgement that neither of us are single.” 

Daine shook her head. “No, please. Not what you think you have to do or what you think I want. What you actually want to, for your own self.”

“That distinction doesn’t materially change my answer.” 

“I just...” Daine blinked. “This really isn’t how I was expecting this chat to go. I’ve been dreading it all day.” 

“What were you expecting?”

She shrugged. “Suffering, at least. Sentences that started with words like ‘the honorable thing’. An offer to cover the fee at the Healer.” 

“No. No, in fact, I’d have asked for a relationship months ago but I’d presumed you would be pitying. Even appalled.”

“Really,” was Daine’s only response for a long moment. She ran a hand slowly across his shoulder and then down his ribs, expression rapt. 

“Obviously, pitying and appalled are still valid options, your current condition aside.” He heard his own voice, strained and tense. 

Diaine melted into him, boneless, taking one deep breath against his chest and then another. “Well, don’t I feel silly, then.” 

“About?”

“Well, you’re asking and I’m not appalled. And I certainly don’t pity you. And I would’ve rather waited a few years to get married, no insult at all to you, but I think it’s best we do this traditional.”

“For the sake of the child?”

“The public ceremony, yes. And even that I would have been ready for in my own time. Everything else, no. I’m right pleased.”

She tugged at his shoulder until he was braced above her. Daine tugged his hair in a way that made him completely unable to think beyond her, guiding him down into a kiss, gentle and then much less so.

She walked with him to breakfast the next morning and it was the first time he could remember being hungry in weeks.  
  
“We can’t just keep having kids at random,” Daine told him mildly. 

“I’ll do some research,” He swallowed his mouthful of eggs to reassure her.

She grabbed his hand on the table, casual, and looked at him in a way that made his mouth go dry. “See that you do.” 


End file.
